London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Tuesday, Oct 14, 2025

Loneliness: 'Alone is ok, but being lonely - it hurts'

Loneliness: 'Alone is ok, but being lonely - it hurts'

"I'm grinning and bearing it but that doesn't mean it's easy."

Raggie El-Komos has lived on his own in Cornwall for the last 17 years, after his wife, Linda, died from cancer.

Being alone "is ok", he says, "but being lonely... it hurts, and Covid-19 is not helping that at all."

After conducting a year-long inquiry into loneliness, a group of MPs and peers is calling on the prime minister to commit to helping people reconnect socially when planning England's recovery from coronavirus.

Before the pandemic, Raggie used to go out to play bingo with some of his neighbours.

"I don't like the game much but I go there just for the company a couple of hours a week, just to talk to someone, to see someone," he tells me.

"For the last year, nothing's been happening, like for everyone else.

"I'm grinning and bearing it because everybody is in the same boat so there's no complaint here but that doesn't mean it's easy."

Raggie is 72 and, with a heart condition, he has been shielding. He finds it difficult to walk up hills so uses a mobility scooter to get around.

"I took my mobility scooter, I went to Tesco which is just about 400 metres away. I can walk leaning on my scooter and I just walked around, I didn't buy anything. I just walked around to see some people.

"I did that twice but I thought no, that's really sad, no more."

New research by the British Red Cross found that almost a third of UK adults are concerned about being able to interact with people in person in the way they did before the pandemic.

The Red Cross are now supporting Raggie by hosting a weekly zoom catch-up, which allows him to chat with others in a similar situation - he says it has been "a lifeline".

He hopes the group may be able to meet in person once lockdown is lifted.

Loneliness 'more acute' for some


The MPs and peers on the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Loneliness heard many experiences like Raggie's.

More than 500 submissions were made to the group's independent inquiry, which ran parallel with the pandemic.

They want to see public spaces made more welcoming, with more public toilets and better street lighting to make it easier for people to meet others informally.

They also want long-term funding for charities who help those who are isolated.

And they heard that people from black and Asian communities, and those with mental or physical health problems, had experienced particularly acute forms of loneliness.

Neil O'Brien, the Conservative MP who chairs the APPG says it's important to create informal opportunities to connect as well as supporting organised schemes.

"The role of chance encounters is really important," he says.

"Often the people most in need of more connection are the people who are most shy about going out and finding new people.

"Creating those chance opportunities to just get talking to people, to see a poster on a noticeboard with an invitation to come to something, are really important and they can have an effect that's far beyond the scale of the money required to make them happen," he adds.

I can't wait to start jumping on the bus again

And it's not just people who live alone who have experienced loneliness.

Ifeoma Anagu is 29 and lives in Liverpool with her partner and young daughter.

Ifeoma Anagu says she felt like her life had stopped when she had to shield during the pandemic.

When the first lockdown was announced, she had to stop going in to her job as a support worker in order to shield because she has diabetes.

"I am used to going to work, seeing patients, trying to help them out. It's kind of my life, so when it stopped I felt I was missing out.

"I had never stayed at home for three weeks without going out.

"I just found myself staying in the room. I lived in the living room. I would just be there thinking about what I would do with my life.

"At some point I wasn't eating well. I was just thinking: 'what shall I do?'

"I kind of drifted from everyone but, at some point I thought: 'I can't allow this time to actually waste'."

Things changed for Ifeoma when she found a life coaching course online.

She gained a certificate and is now looking forward to life returning to something closer to normal.

"I can't wait to start jumping on the bus again, doing things that I used to do. Most especially, I am looking forward to taking my little one out because she's been home all throughout and she hasn't really met people.

"It's one thing to know that you are lonely and the second thing is to find a way to get out of it.

"If not, it might actually lead to depression. I didn't want that because I also have to be there for my little one and my spouse."

Loneliness 'won't end' with pandemic


The British Red Cross commissioned a poll of 2,000 adults in the UK conducted between 5th & 9th March 2021

It's findings revealed:

*  Around two in five (39%) UK adults don't think their feelings of loneliness will go away after the coronavirus crisis

*  Almost a third (32%) said they were concerned about not being able to connect with people in person in the way they did prior to the pandemic

*  30% of UK adults say a lack of facilities like public toilets, local bus services or accessibility adaptations will prevent them from meeting people when coronavirus restrictions lift

*  More than two fifths (42%) are concerned about feeling safe using public facilities and services while coronavirus is still present in the UK

The APPG has 15 recommendations for the government, which include taking combatting loneliness into account when planning new housing developments or transport connections.

Labour MP Liz Twist, who is also a member of the group, says she hopes the recommendations will "act as a catalyst to move forward further and faster with work to tackle loneliness right across government and in our communities".

"Tackling loneliness and reconnecting communities is vital if we are genuinely going to build back better," she adds.

British Red Cross Executive Director Zoe Abrams said it was crucial that the government's commitment to tackling loneliness "does not wane after this pandemic".

"The need for action on loneliness will only grow as we work to re-engage those who have been severely isolated during the pandemic.

"And those who have recently faced the life transitions which we know can lead to loneliness - such as poor physical and mental health, losing a job or losing a loved one," she adds.

The government says tackling loneliness is a "national priority".

NHS Volunteer Responders have been working to tackle loneliness throughout the pandemic and there will be a big focus on supporting people affected in the coming months.

And a new £4m fund will open soon for applications from small grassroots organisations, to build relationships in communities to help reduce loneliness.

A spokesman for the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport said: "We recognise that the easing of lockdown restrictions will not mean the end of loneliness for many people, which is why this will remain a priority for the government.

"Since the beginning of the pandemic we have invested over £31.5m in organisations supporting people who experience loneliness - and a further £44m to organisations supporting people with their mental health."


"It was just me and the television"


Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
EU Deploys New Biometric Entry/Exit System: What Non-EU Travelers Must Know
Australian Prime Minister’s Private Number Exposed Through AI Contact Scraper
Ex-Microsoft Engineer Confirms Famous Windows XP Key Was Leaked Corporate License, Not a Hack
China’s lesson for the US: it takes more than chips to win the AI race
Australia Faces Demographic Risk as Fertility Falls to Record Low
California County Reinstates Mask Mandate in Health Facilities as Respiratory Illness Risk Rises
Israel and Hamas Agree to First Phase of Trump-Brokered Gaza Truce, Hostages to Be Freed
French Political Turmoil Elevates Marine Le Pen as Rassemblement National Poised for Power
China Unveils Sweeping Rare Earth Export Controls to Shield ‘National Security’
The Davos Set in Decline: Why the World Economic Forum’s Power Must Be Challenged
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
×